Bloody Daughters, Savage Son
by ArouraLeona
Summary: Jason Todd the Red Hood returns to Gotham, despite his recent expulsion, following the trail of a nomadic serial killer, who is butchering young American girls across the globe. With a body count about to hit the double digits and a regular pattern that puts both the killer and Jason against the clock, Jason really doesn't have time to deal with BatFamily drama.
1. Body Count

Chapter I

"Body Count"

The blood pooling around her body was almost dry, but not quite. Hours dead, not yet a full day. Jason was getting closer.

Not close enough. Not to save this one. But closer is closer.

He examined the girl visually only. He was back in Gotham now, and the Bats would notice his tampering if they got to the body before the cops. GCPD would assume it was a Bat, but the Bats would know it washim.

Jason wasn't ready for that. Not yet. Bruce didn't want him in the city limits, and despite the deep longing he always had for home, he wasn't up for that kind of fight. He had work to do that was more important than dealing with Bruce's bullshit.

Hard enough to track a nomadic serial killer without having to deal with a territorial, hypocritical jackass getting in the way.

Jason crouched on the left side of the body, studying her jaw, her nostrils. Unbroken. Unbruised. Most of the other victims had suffered facial trauma. Jason assumed it was either to keep them quiet or to make them scream. One or the other. That this body, this girl's body was in such … good condition (for a dead body) suggested she'd played along.

Street kid. Gotham street kid. Smart. Practical. Knew what death looked like when it caught her. She looked all of 13 but was wearing undergarments a woman a decade older might pick. It made Jason see green. With him and Selena out of Gotham, who exactly was looking out for these kids? They weren't exactly on the radar for any of the others. Between him and Catwoman child sex crimes in Gotham had plummeted over the last few years. With them gone—

Jason bit his tongue. That wasn't why he was here. He was hunting. He was hunting, and his prey had been in this room. Time to buckle down.

The wound that killed her – a hole the size of a coke can in her belly – was almost completely dry, and stank. Whatever the man used to kill (Jason wasn't 100% sure on that, but he was leaning towards some form of borer) had obviously taken a section of bowel with it, letting waste spill into the open cavity of her body and ooze out with the bleeding.

He had been in rooms with so many versions of death, but none had smelled quite as awful as this.

The man fed them before killing them. Leaving them enough time for their digestion to hit just the right time. Never the same things, though. Jason had actual forensics on the last three. And just by eyeballing, he could tell everything she'd been given was soft and easy to digest. Wasn't like that with bodies six and eight.

Sick bastard. Same M.O. but a different … unique ambiance for each girl. Cause of death was the same, the symmetry the same. The feeding the same. Same type of injuries. But the textures and colors were different. And there was always something special in each crime scene.

Jason shut his eyes catching a faint hint of music. He looked up. A wind chime. There was a wind chime, high above. Wind chimes don't justhappenin abandoned buildings.

The color. The texture. The symmetry. The smell. The music.

No question. She was number nine.

Body eight and this girl were the only two he'd seen in person, and Eight he'd seen on a slab at the morgue. She was the granddaughter of an old ex-mob contact hiding in Rio. Thought it was a hit. Cartel, maybe. Knew Jason's weakness for children and vengeance and sent for him.

Old man didn't realize Jason had already seen seven other cases with the same M.O. or that he'd already be – for lack of a less dramatic phrase – on the case. He'd been called in by, of all people, Tara Battleworth.

Dead girls popping up all over the world. American girls only, but all over the world. Kidnapped. Brutalized. Split open. Left for viewing.

First was the daughter of expats in Korea. Second was a young competition horse jumper in Arkansas. Third was a kid on a two week missionary trip to Uganda. Fourth, and oldest, was a newly-graduated 17-year-old fresh off a plane, found in a storage room in the Kona International Airport in Hawaii. Fifth was a 2nd grader in the woods behind a private park in Metropolis. Superman had been off-world that week. Sixth was the middle child of a large family touring through Italy, in Rome. Seventh was a middle schooler in Colorado. Eighth was a girl from Detroit visiting her exiled Pap-pap.

And now Ninth; a Gotham street brat.

These girls were all colors and a wide range of ages, from 7 to 17. Hair different lengths and colors. Different hobbies.

The only thing they seemed to have in common was that they were girls, and that they were there when he wanted them. There wasn't anything … definite. Not that he could tell. Not a singular thing that connected all nine of them that he was looking for. It obviously wasn't so clear-cut as that.

Jason thought back toLolita, a novel he'd read years ago and not touched since, but he remembered enough. Back to the way Humbert Humbert locked onto the girls he fetishized. Specifically Lolita, who he would spend years abusing. Maybe it was something like that. Moments of vile desire, yearning constantly for a creature it was impossible to possess. The main character in that book was looking for girls 9-14. That's not vastly different from this monster's target group.

Major difference would be that this guy, unlike H.H. didn't take his Lolitas traveling. Or bother with the families, if they even had one.

But it was more than a one off. He looked up to that wind chime. There was always an element of domesticity or actual beauty brought into the horror. As if he wanted something more from these girls than their bodies, their deaths, but knew he couldn't have it.

Because he knew he had to keep moving to stay free?

Or because he understood he was a monster and that wind chimes, flowers, family portraits, sculptures, and other such objects were anachronistic to his very self?

Jason wasn't sure yet. But the man would leave clues. He always left clues. Pieces of the girl's body, pulled from inside her, and bits of the girl's hair around Gotham for the next two or three weeks. Not the easiest thing to do, track a serial killer while hiding from a clan of militant detectives, who were very against him being in their territory, but this girl – all of these girls – deserved justice.

And for proper justice, this monster would have to die.

0000XXXX0000


	2. Meditations in Water

Chapter II

"Meditations in Water"

Jason couldn't be Red Hood in Gotham. Too flashy. Too well known. Too many people happy to kick his ass. Couldn't be Jason Todd, either. Wasn't just that Jason Todd was dead, it was that they'd be monitoring for him. Have facial recognition set up.

Different mask would hide all of that, but a mask would also draw attention. Bats, again. Seriously, once upon a time you could get away with a bit of freelancing in Gotham City, but Bruce was getting more and more paranoid about that shit as he got older.

Maybe if he went to Batwoman. She was always the more practical of the lot of them… but no. Not worth the risk. Instead, he put lifts in his shoes. Added an extra layer of padding to his midsection, along with loser clothing, giving the illusion of fat. He put in dark contacts and a rinse in his hair that lightened it from black to brown, and he bleached a few more strands to white. He used makeup to hide his freckles and add subtle wrinkles. And, finally, a mouth guard prosthetic that changed the shape of his cheeks and lips.

The man who entered Gotham, Terrance Jameson, 36 year old travel journalist (and yes, he had an established blog that dated back to his days with the League, which brought in enough ad revenue to make Terrence a believable alias) bore little resemblance to the long-dead Jason Todd or the recently exiled Red Hood.

He wasn't an idiot. Both Babs and Tim had amazing surveillance systems in place, and _he_ no longer had the benefit of Bizarro's enhanced tech to avoid them. He made sure he had a few exit plans before entering the city limits. This was a government-funded gig, after all. Jason knew Battleworth didn't give a shit about him, not really, but she also knew he had equally little loyalty to her and her masters. If they wanted him to keep his mouth shut about their programs, Battleworth would have to do what she could to extract him if things went to shit.

And Roy always had his back. He'd forgotten that for a while, but he remembered it now.

He could also lean on the few families with a stake in his hunt. Particularly Massareli, the exiled mobster currently residing in Brazil. The old man had arraigned for a path out for him, if needed. But Jason was planning on playing this one quite. He didn't want trouble. Trouble wouldn't solve this case, and it wouldn't catch the bastard before he went after another little girl.

From the Bat's perspective this would look like one dead body. One. Not nine. Suspicious, sure. Especially because of the way the crime scene was laid out. But, in the end, Gotham was drowning in dead bodies, and most of the connecting cases were international. It was very possible Bruce and the rest of the family would miss the connection.

Helped that every single country, including the U.S., was doing everything in their power to hide that connection. No one wanted to admit such a serial killer existed.

And those who did? They didn't want Batman on the case. They didn't want Nightwing or the gang of teenagers. No. They wanted the fallen Bat, who was willing to take life and death into his own hands and end permanently the monster's trail of corpses.

Which Jason could fully get behind.

Terrance was happily stretched out on the couch of his VacaySit's well-appointed sitting room/library. He was looking over images of the crime scene with a recently-finished paperback tucked beside him. Terrance and Jason were both upset about being finished with the book, but Jason knew it was time to get to work. He'd sink a little more into the Terrance persona when he slipped out for dinner in an hour or so. Let the locals see him, and study the locals, too.

It was a fully middle class area. _Live how the locals live_. That was one of the principles of Terrance's traveling life, as spelled out in his blog. Terrance didn't know Gotham all that well. Very few Gothamites fit firmly in that demographic. And in this clean, almost suburban rowhouse, he'd never catch sight of Gotham's most popular attraction, Her vast flock of vigilantes, who hunted criminals of the slums and criminals of great and corrupt wealth. Middle class areas were typically safe.

Jason suspected the killer would discover this fact quickly enough, if he hadn't been aware of it already. Somewhere in a middle –class neighborhood would be best for hiding, and then displaying, both the girl's sex organs and her hair. As well as hiding out after the kill itself. Man was no longer hunting for his own pleasure. He'd killed in Gotham. That was over. Now, now he rested.

Which made Jason furious. So instead he focused on those trophies the man would now be planning to display.

Both would be found in visible areas. He wouldn't hide them for long. At least he never had in the past.

Ground level or eye level. The hair in Hawaii had dangled from a hanging lamp fixture in an open room with a two-storey high ceiling. The rope had made the hair obvious to everyone who walked in the hotel lobby.

The small uterus of the girl in Colorado had rested in the arms of a statue, placed on a pedestal. It sat in a highly trafficked square. It was above eyelevel, but certainly eye-catching.

Wealthy Gothamites adored donating funds for statues and various other art instillations. When it came to "eye-catching", the man would have a multitude of options.

But Jason considered his evidence. Specifically those unique touches to each crime scene. Colorado had the picture frame with the stock image of the family, and then organ placement on the statue of the mother.

Hawaii had an old –fashioned stained glass bowl. Jason couldn't be certain, but he suspected it was like other such things he had seen used to hold candles. That was set against the modern chandelier.

In Uganda the girl was killed in a room where flowers littered the floor. Her hair was wrapped around vines that were wrapped around a vintage fence.

In Korea absolutely the only decoration in the room, apart from the body itself, was a calligraphy brush anchored to the wall behind her head. The trophies taken from her body were displayed in the window of a store whose exterior walls were decorated with a vivid, hand-painted mural.

On and on they went. Not all as obvious as those – a bolt of silk and a history of telecommunications museum? – but there was _something_ connecting these added objects to the final body part disposal sites.

Girl Nine had wind chimes. Tomorrow, during the day, Jason would scour the city. Art instillations or sculptures with musical elements. Orchestras. Shops that sold musical instruments. Schools of music. Probably something on every damn street, but he'd have a list prepared tonight, and check them all out during school hours. Safest time of day.

OXOXO

Jason hadn't quite realized how much he missed Gotham. But as he wandered the park, searching for the waterfall xylophone (known as "Running Falls") he'd read about and getting reacquainted with the wide variety of food stalls as he walked, that homesickness became clear. That pressing ache was useless, however, so he pushed it aside. Focusing instead on finding the elusive corner of the park where the water chime was supposedly hidden.

"Ah!" he grinned. Pleased to see one thing go right. So many of the music school s and orchestra practice and performance locations he'd checked out so far had gone out of business or been boarded up for one reason or another.

It looked like Gotham was about to dip into one of her far-too-common economic downturn periods. Recessions sucked anywhere, but in Gotham they lead to an expansion of the slums, like a creeping cancer, that never quite drew back, even when things got better. Also, crime would balloon in the most vulnerable communities. It would generally result in at least one more costumed villain, which would pull the attention of the costumed heroes, and stretch the standard uniformed officers, leaving every-day criminals free to take advantage of the chaos left for them on the ground.

Recessions were hell in Gotham.

"Not that anyone really cares about _that_."

The Bats were so focused on the high-level shit that the smaller, every-day crimes too often slipped by them. Batman just didn't have time for opiates or child abuse 90% of the time.

"Steph might," he mumbled. Then almost slapped his well-disguised face. Last thing he needed was some Big-Brother-style program of Red Robin's catching him out because he was _talking to himself_.

Fucking embarrassing.

Jason finally made his way through the trees to an initially underwhelming torrent of water. It fell from a cliff barely twice his height into a small pool, and then fed into a stream maybe four feet across and two feet deep that skipped merrily from its little grove to some place deeper in the uncleared area of Gotham's largest park.

Jason took a deep breath. Though the sky above was the same murky yellow it was from any location in the city, here at least, the air was clean. It smelled of green grass and moss and faintly of rotting vegetation in wet earth. It was still too early in autumn to be crisp, but there was the taste of cold water in the air that spoke of the coming fall.

And music filled the place. Sweet. Delicate. Deep and hollow. Echoing.

The xylophone did not resemble any xylophone Jason was familiar with, but music was hardly his forte. Smaller keys were higher on the falls. Larger keys were lower. They seemed to be made of dark hardwood, but he didn't feel the need to disturb the instrument to discover its secrets just yet.

Looking around, Jason saw a bench cleverly disguised as a fallen log and chose to sit and study the falls from that vantage point for a time. He sat. He breathed. He absorbed.

The _sound_ was right, he felt. It wasn't the same, but it was similar enough. And it certainly had the beauty all locations in previous kills had in common. Placement, though. Where would he place his trophies?

The bench he was sitting on? He wrinkled his nose, looking at the thing which was in itself a work of art. Maybe. The sign, small and not particularly eye-catching, at the subtle entrance of the clearing, declaring the name "Running Falls" and nothing else? More likely.

Also, it wasn't a well-traveled area. The killer might place something here and wait days for it to be found.

"Unless _she_ is free," he whispered to the music playing around him. Ivy felt a very personal connection to this park. One of the reasons it remained so well-maintained and free of gang presence. You could feel her vengeance waiting in the air around you. She had been known to kill people who tried to modernize the park with unnatural materials and had done serious mental harm to a team of people who brought pesticides in to destroy some form of plant the city viewed as invasive for some reason.

Something vine-ish. He smiled. Should have known better. But every new mayor tries something to make their mark on the city, and the most foolish think they can take down people like Dr. Pamela Isley.

When she was free and active in the city, it was also a safe haven for children with nowhere else to go. Or who needed a safe place to run. Ivy was a lot of things, many of them horrible, but she had a strange maternal streak a mile wide.

If someone put body parts, a _child's_ body parts, in Ivy's territory when Ivy was free, she would know almost immediately.

But would she tell anyone? The man got off on having his crimes exposed. He wanted people – maybe not _everyone_ , but some number of people – to know.

For a woman. For a girl.

Yes. Maybe. Yes.

If she didn't kill him herself. Yes.

And it would be a uniquely Gotham crime scene. That would be something this killer might find himself leaning towards. All the museums and statues and even the fence in Uganda…. All specific to their respective regions.

What did Gotham have? Its costumes. For good, and for ill.

Jason couldn't be 100% sure. He would still check off every other location on his list. He would check the Arkham Attendance App to see if Ivy was currently in or out of the asylum walls. But his instincts were screaming at this musical pool.

He secured a few small motion detectors to surrounding trees and followed the stream out of the park.

 **0000XXXX0000**

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Never expect an update this fast again. I had it, so I'm uploading it, again, to gauge interest. And to play with the character. The stories I read of Jason and the stories I love of Jason are family stories, Outlaws stories that focus on the team. It is amazingly weird that when I actually sit down and write him for myself that it is completely alone, and totally in his head. So... I'm pretty much doing this as I go along. Please, bear with me.


	3. Mother's Arms

Chapter III

"Mother's Arms"

A little research and Jason discovered Ivy was out of Arkham, but not consistently in Gotham City. From what he could tell, when Harley was on assignment from Waller, Ivy made her way back home. However, if Harley was on leave in her New York residence, that's where Ivy preferred to spend her days and nights.

A little more research turned up MomeGraph posts - their own and those of random bystanders - of the two hanging out of various NYC clubs just a few days earlier. His own information from within Blackgate suggested Waller didn't have a team out on assignment.

Ivy wasn't in Gotham.

"Shit," Jason told Terrance's laptop, while he wrote a quick piece about a nearby cafe and hipster museum of vintage toys.

Granted, this killer took two-to-three weeks for the organ and hair display, and both sometimes-villains were flighty as all hell. Ivy could return to the city at any moment. But the fact that she wasn't here _now_ made it less likely that the killer would choose her to find his trophies. He had to be planning his location already, and who would plan to leave them in a place with no guarantee of discovery?

Unless Ivy watched the park from all the way in New York City. Jason wasn't familiar with Poison Ivy's full strength. Tim and Dick both had far more experience with her.

Jason twirled the burner phone that connected him directly to Roy. _He_ couldn't contact Nightwing or Red Robin or Batgirl for intel, but Arsenal could. Jason didn't really want to bother him, but he _could_. All three of them would suspect Roy was calling on Jason's behalf, but they could justify passing the info because Roy was asking.

Dick would be the best target, being Roy, but Jason wasn't quite ready to press the Bats for help, yet. More than that, he didn't want to distract Roy, while he was working on his recovery. Besides, Dick wasn't any more likely to approve of his endgame than Bruce. And he was just as likely to see it coming. Tim might be sympathetic, but he'd also hack his case files in a heartbeat and take everything over the second he found out what was going on. Maybe Tim would figure it out faster, but - just like the rest - in the end, he wouldn't do what the family of the victims (or the girls who were potential _future_ victims) needed him to do.

As always, that fell to Jason.

He turned back to the tablet. Starting, once more, at Korea. Victim One. That they knew of. There was probably another. Less perfectly posed; not planned in the way he wanted. An accident. If Jason could find _that_ victim he'd have a real breakthrough, but so far none of the algorithms he'd been able to slip into various federal databases had found a matching murder. Unsolved or solved.

So perhaps the first victim only almost died. Or perhaps her body was as of yet unfound; though, that seemed unlikely, as he was big on display... Unless what had gone wrong with the unknown (and so far hypothetical-but-statistically-unlikely) original victim was that she was damaged in a way that made her unfit for display.

"Um. Maybe," he told his tablet, as he flipped through reports. He chose to look at the photographs, which included the only real evidence of the man they possessed.

A shoe print. Partial. Full heel and outside rim of the left foot in the corner of pooling blood, a bit of the toe in dirt and dust. No tread. Likely some sort of dress shoe. And large, a 13, easy. Unless he was stuffing the shoe to leave a large print on purpose, which seemed unlikely since it wasn't repeated at any other scene, this man was 6 feet at his shortest.

Jason leaned back in his chair.

Knowing the height would let him ignore a good number of people he went out looking. It was practically the only thing he had on the man. He'd gotten into GCPD records trying to find information on Nine, anything he didn't already have. Outside of blood type and DNA, there was only one thing they found on the body. A black light stamp on the skin between her left thumb and forefinger. An hourglass, with only 15 minutes of sand left in the top. Jason had sent a quick message off to Battleworth asking if there had been similar tests run on the other bodies, and if the information just hadn't made it to him somehow.

He doubted it, and he knew it was probably too late to try now. But better to send the message than do nothing.

Other than that, she wasn't in the system, and never had been. It made him reassess his initial opinion of her.

Knowing there was nothing on her, to him, suggested she probably still had parents somewhere. There were so many little ways that a kid was put on the grid. It meant she never went into the system as an orphan or a rescue/removal by the state (which would secure basic information about her). It also meant that those potential parents didn't give two shits about her because she hadn't yet been declared missing.

So, the street kid in the system was out. Parents a partial in, but really... not declare her missing at all?

A third option was that she had done like Jason had when he was younger. Parents were gone, but fled before the system caught up to him. (A fourth was that she could be a border hopper, voluntary, as a kid tag-a-long, or as merch, but the killer had been very strict to hit a native-born Americans so far, so he was going to assume that pattern held.)

But her being out alone didn't hold with him, looking back over the pictures. Girls did sometimes choose street sleeping over group homes, but it wasn't common. When _he_ was living on the streets, his experience was that girls didn't typically live out of groups if there was any way to help it. Even if your only option was shitty parents or a corrupt as fuck foster system, it was still better than alone on the street if you were young and female. Usually better if you were young and a boy, too, but Jason'd been independent too long to let go of it when his mom had passed. And he'd been pretty good at finding places to crash.

Besides that, the girl had soft heels and clean skin. Clean nails. A girl living on the street wasn't going to have good shoes or regular baths. Hell, a girl in Gotham's subpar foster care probably wasn't going to have that, either.

Parents.

He looked back at the tablet, remembering why he had assumed she was a street kid in the first place. Really shitty parents. Maybe they sold her, or forced her, or hurt her themselves. Maybe she just grew up too fast and liked to go out and pretend that she was barely even a teenager.

Really shitty parents.

God, did he know a little something about shitty parents. But it didn't mean you deserved to lose them like that. Or die yourself. Or that you wouldn't be a little sad your kid was tortured and murdered. Not everyone was cut out to be the #1 parent in the world. That was a thing he'd learned the hard way. He'd never, no matter how many parental figures he'd struggled to gather, managed to find one of those. But fuck if each one of them didn't rip him to fucking pieces all the time, because he wanted them to be.

He wasn't a complete moron. It worked both ways. Disappointment. For most of them. Not all of them, he didn't disappoint all of them, because not all of them cared, but at least a few. Imperfect though they were.

This girl's parents, shit or not, deserved to know what happened to her. Either to mourn, or to be made aware of how much they'd fucked up. And serve justice.

Serve him.

Cuz sometimes shit parents were shit people, and shit people needed a good kneecapping.

XOXOX

Jason sat in a cafe chair outside the trendiest pizzaria as far into Gotham's slums as he dared this close to nighttime. Technically, it was a bit pedestrian for Terrance's blog, but the thrill of Gotham crime would give it an edge, and Jason could lift it up a bit with bullshit narrative about Gotham's social structure. He would have to, he needed to be at this restaurant not for Terrance, but for Jason. Punch Pizza (because vigilantes, but also because of pounded dough or something ... but there was also a lot of discarded Bat and Bird tech hanging on the walls, which someone should really do something about) was across the street from what Jason remembered as an old, rundown warehouse arcade. Today, it was a roped off teen party spot.

It hadn't taken all that much research to discover the meaning of the hourglass. He'd figured it for a club stamp, but popups were harder to find, and harder to get into. Also, being anonymous was kind of the point, so asking questions was that much harder. Still. Jason needed information.

He was no Barbara Gordon, but he knew enough to get into the database and put himself on the text-chain invite list. The private app was basically spyware, so he sacrificed a spare burner phone to it. He probably wasn't the only one, if any of the kids were smart.

It would be an interesting location for a blog piece. But one that Terrance would absolutely never make it into. Red Hood could, no question. Through the roof. And then Batman would show up, and that would be the worst. So this one was on Jason, but he currently was looking far too old for it.

Taking stock of himself, he could get the makeup off, removing the wrinkles. Black undershirt would do if he lost the button down. Jeans were jeans. These weren't the height of fashion, they were just jeans, but they wouldn't make him stand out. But the dress shoes, and the salt and pepper hair would block him at the door in a heartbeat.

As he ate his pizza, he consulted is inner map of Gotham. Technically, he would have plenty of time before the popup club opened and closed, not so technically, bleaching and drying hair took time. And he'd still have to buy shoes.

The pizza, Terrance noted, was rather nice. Chewy crust, fantastic cheese, but rather light on the green olives. Why even offer a pizza with green olives if you're only going to put three? Points for a staff brave enough to set up shop in that location, but maybe put a bit more money and thought into toppings.

Three-point-five stars.

Now. Hair dye. And sneakers.

XOXOX

With the wrinkles off, and the "body fat" off, Jason was a bit more wary of cameras. He still had the mouth guard in. He still covered the freckles. His hair was white-blonde. But his body was shaped like his body, even if his face was marginally different.

Tim and Barbara weren't just good. They were geniuses. And though they might not want him shut down as much as Bruce, they'd still want him shut down. If for no other reason than to do what Daddy said. Jason tried not to blame them for that. Staying in his good graces had its perks. That's why he tried from time to time. Even if he never managed.

And that wasn't even counting Kate and her people, which he knew almost nothing about. Honestly, it was surprising there weren't more cameras in Gotham, considering. Point being there were lots of smart eyes watching.

So, he kept his own eyes out, and took long, winding paths back to the old arcade.

The bouncer at the door was a few inches shorter and more than a few inches narrower than him. Jason didn't grin only because grinning wouldn't get him in the door. Grinning wasn't what he was going for tonight.

He flashed his phone with its QR code to the kid's reader, and was given the okay, and then was assessed for the entry fee. Apparently entry was value based. Which was some ego-killing (or ego-boosting, he supposed) bullshit, but whatever.

"How much?" he asked the kid.

"Just you?" He was eyeing the pair of girls standing too close to Jason's back. Jason had noticed them but was doing all he could to ignore him. He'd taken stock of their absurdly expensive hair and nails and knew they weren't the sort Nine would hang out with. Or who would hang out with Nine.

He grunted. Pulling away from the two, and trying not to talk too much. The prosthetic in his mouth was good, but no need to mess it up with unnecessary talking.

"Twenty."

It was reasonable. Not bad for a guy in his twenties. He'd done a better job than he thought with his makeup or hair if he wasn't being double charged. That or they expected him to spend heavy on alcohol and drugs inside. Bad luck to them. He passed a bill, the kid stamped his hand, and Jason entered the building.

The converted warehouse was as large as he remembered; larger, maybe. They'd hollowed out the back, where the owner'd kept busted machines and junk, and opened that up for a stage for the DJ. The old ticketing and merch area had turned into a bar. In the far corner, where Jason vaguely remembered a toddler play area, there was a darker, seemingly empty section, which - from this distance - he could only assume was for VIP-types.

 _That_ gave Jason pause. He could think of a small handful of young Gothamites who could get into that corner. And he didn't want to run into any of them. He'd stay away from it as much as he could. But the girls he was looking for might very well flock there.

Bar was the better bet.

It took time to walk through the press of bodies and not look like he was too determined to walk through the press of bodies. He'd read the disclaimers when he signed up, and had raised an eyebrow at the 'above the clothes groping' allowance on the list of rules he'd received. And wow was that a thing people took advantage of. People pressed together like they needed to press to survive.

Jason hated it, but he made it through. As he broke out, the music shifted from something high tempo and loud to something low with heavy drums that set a deep pulse in the mass of them, making them tighter and ... he was glad he got out of there before had happened.

Neglected kids might feed off of something like that, though. Lots of kids look for love in the wrong places if they don't know what love looks like.

Jason tried not to dwell on that thought too long.

The bar was well-lit, well-stocked, and the bartender appeared professional. She also looked to be in her thirties, mid-to-late. Not exactly who Jason expected to see at what was without question an illegal club. But from this new vantage point, Jason looked over the crowd and noticed that the whole place looked surprisingly ... calm. People were dancing and touching extremely too much, for his comfort. About a tenth of them looked old enough to drink, but ... the ones with drinks all looked somewhat in their majority. Which was pretty law abiding, for Gotham. And the ones in that press on the dance floor all appeared to be adults.

He spotted the minors easily enough. They were there, but they were, Jason hardly knew how to process it, sectioned off. Voluntarily. He didn't remember shit about that in the disclaimer. Sure, _he_ wasn't a minor, so he wouldn't have received the rules for minors. His amounted to no violence, no fighting, no weapons, no rape, don't bring in your own alcohol, and no drugs, which he'd laughed at. Jason assumed that was because alcohol and drugs would be on-site, but... Fucking hell, what if there were no drugs in this club? What _was_ this place?

He glanced around and noticed that stationed around the walls, very unobtrusively, were guards. _Chaperones._

The hell.

He took a seat at the bar, and faced the bartender. Honestly. The place had surprised him, why not try and surprise it right back?

"What's good?" he asked the woman, when she finished with a couple at the other end of the bar and made her way to him.

She chuckled, "I only carry what's good. What do you want? You look over 21, so the whole bar is open to you." She nodded at the floor, "Kids can only play on the lower shelves. I suggest hard liquor; though, I admit our whiskey and wine selections leave something to be desired for anyone who really cares. Being on the move, I'm not risking anything too precious to movers dropping it."

"Yeah, that makes good common sense." He ran his eyes over the bottles. She was right, her selection was good, but he wasn't here to drink. "Amaretto sour. I like the taste of alcohol, but I've never been anyone fancy with it," he confessed to her with something like Terrance's smile. "So whatever you think's best. If that's the most expensive, fine. But it doesn't have to be."

"I only break out the really expensive stuff for the corner crowd," she laughed full-on this time, eyes cutting to that dark corner. She pulled a bottle from the middle of the row and began to mix his drink. "They expect it. Mosta Gotham's got more sense."

Jason's snorted, "You'd think. But not always."

Her lips had a wry sort of twist as she passed him his drink, "No, you're right. Not always."

Pulling another couple of bills out of the wallet he now had tucked _inside_ his pants (gropers, seriously), he passed them over with an appreciative nod while she took off to handle another group. He wanted to question her. She would be willing to answer, he thought, but he might work her up to it.

He slipped away from the bar and went to hide in a secluded area where he had a fairly good view of most of the room. Observing the behavior of the people not in the dancing mass. There was a ring around them of dancers who did not touch with such abandon. A wider age-range there. Jason paid special attention to hands and pockets, but saw absolutely no money or drugs passing hands.

Nine had been clean. And this place, amazingly - almost alarmingly - appeared clean.

A kid who, from all appearances at the scene, seemed to keep her cool when facing down a killer. When facing down agony. And who attended drug-free raves in _Gotham_. Jason could barely even fathom it, and he was looking at all of it. He had those facts in front of him.

Bad ass girl. Okay. He got that. He knew a few of those. Bad ass, drug-free girl. Kay. He knew a few of those, too. Same ones. He shouldn't judge. They'd kick his ass. His _face_. He was rather attached to his face.

He should be ashamed of himself. That's what this was. He'd become judgemental.

Still. Drug-free Gotham raves. The ex-drug lord in him was aghast. The ex-drug lord who wanted nothing in the world more than to keep drugs away from minors in this city thought this was a goddamned miracle on par with resur-fucking-rection.

In the kiddy corners, the younger teens were drinking what he now assumed were either virgin drinks or the lightest alcohol known to humanity and giggling about life. There was obvious fliration. There was touching. All of it above clothing, and he watched. He paid attention. He'd noticed the cup of tester strips on the bar, and he noticed that most of the tables the teens were sitting at had their own cups of stripps like restaurants had napkins and toothpicks.

Kids didn't love this place because it was free for drugs and booze. They loved this place because it was free and _safe_.

Mind. Blown.

And yet, Nine had been to one of these only a few nights before she had died. Even kids who were thinking about being safe while having fun could end up dead. Couldn't forget that.

Jason went back to the bar.

"Like it?" the bartender asked as she made him another.

"Yeah. I mean, obviously," he laughed.

She slid the second to him and tilted her head. "So You're not dancing. You're not drinking more than the bare minimum. You're alone. Why are you here? You got in, so you know not to mess with these kids..."

She was smart. That was good. And she wanted the honesty. That was better. Well. For a certain value of honesty. He cleared his throat.

"My parents separated when I was little. Mom got with a new guy. Had a little girl. Never really got to know her. My sister, but ... you know. I just... didn't. Mom was never much of a mom. Maybe I was angry. And then I stayed angry. But I... I found out a few days ago she went missing. My sister, I mean. Mom, she..." he cleared his throat again, it was harder this time. "Listen, I don't mean to say that... I mean... She hasn't told anyone. No one knows. The cops, I mean. No one knows she's gone. And because of the way things are at home, my sister, well, it's not like Mom pays attention to whether or not she goes to school. So, friends..."

God, it was hard to look at anything but his glass. Hard to talk.

"But I know she came to some of these. I know I shouldn't have, but I work in IT, so I was able to get into her phone. Which she left behind! I can't believe she did that, but she did. I don't know her well enough to know where she'd run off to, but... I did it when I was younger. Run off, I mean. Didn't go well for me. Made it back, but it... it wasn't good. Don't want that for her. Mom... if she doesn't care..."

Jason pulled out two pictures, one that looked vaguely like a school headshot, and one that looked more like a candid. Both were shops done of her facial features on saved images Jason had of one of his own high school friends from his brief time there. She had been small enough, and with the images printed out, it was harder to tell that they were taken on an older picture phone.

He could feel the bartender studying him, but he couldn't meet her eyes.

"I know her as Nina. I doubt she gave her name. Or that name. She doesn't like it," Jason shrugged. "She... I don't think she's always happy. But she's a fighter. I've failed her, but I want to do right by her now." And he couldn't be more honest than that.

"What are you wanting?" the bartender demanded.

"If you've seen her? To know that she's safe. Maybe if you can get me in contact with her? Or with people who can. Maybe if she's made friends here, and she's staying with them. And if that's the case, then... you know... as long as she's safe... I wouldn't force her to go back, I mean, I get it..."

"And what are you afraid of," the woman's voice lowered and her eyes were sharp.

"That she's not safe. That one of Gotham's usual horrors has found her." He shrugged again, but there was a shudder in this one that he didn't have to work hard to fake. "Men. Older than her. Not a friend. Not a boyfriend. Not a ... a _good_ boyfriend, one her age who thinks the same way she does about it. Someone taking advantage of a lost girl. This place looks pretty great, but this is _Gotham_."

"This place is as safe as I can make it," the bartender said with a voice so firm he almost trusted her.

"In Gotham," he replied, "safe is never more than an illusion."

This time she was the one who shrugged. She wasn't a child. She knew. But she was also making a better go of _helping_ than he'd ever seen before, so he'd give her the attempt and not press the issue.

"Have you seen her?" he asked again.

"Her face looks familiar. Vaguely," she answered, finally. After a pause long enough that Jason thought she wouldn't. "But I see so many faces, and girls that age have a way of looking alike. Young, pretty. And if they're happy and relaxed and in dim lighting? Even worse." She glared up at him, "Over 18, so you're cut off from the teen areas. You can't talk to them, okay? But if you'll leave the pictures, I'll ask a few kids I think might have answers, for you."

He tapped a finger on the picture of a boy with a slightly altered face, whose name he barely remembered, who sat with his arm around a girl who was once a dead boy's best friend and now had the face of a dead girl. What a picture to just turn over.

He nodded and handed it to her, along with the portrait.

She seemed to get lost in looking at it for a moment, "Have a number in case I need to contact you?"

Jason jotted his sacrificed burner number on the back of the first picture, and muttered his thanks as a crowd of guys rushed the bar with big, happy smiles.

Someone's birthday.

He took that chance to escape her. To escape the emotion of it. Maybe he'd try a quick circle of the room. See the VIP area-

He heard a laugh.

From halfway across a massive building that was essentially a converted _warehouse,_ Jason heard a laugh that made him tense. Only two laughs could have done that. He turned, staring through the darkness and saw him. That tousled hair. The back muscles bunched under a shirt so tight it might as well be skin. That ass he was completely not at all envious of when Donna and Kory went into their occasional moments of rapturous memory. How the hell he'd ever gotten the reputation of someone female heroes went to with Dick problems... (And absolutely, _absolutely_ had _never_ raptured over it himself. _Absolutely never._ He would walk himself right back down to hell before admitting to some absurd nonsense like that.) The thighs and calves designed and honed to be anchored to the ground as little as possible.

Jason nearly screamed.

Was it the worst person he could run into?

No. No, of course not.

But fuck if it didn't feel like it.

He _had_ been considering contacting the man after all. Thinking the bouncy bastard was far, far away. Now, if he wanted, Jason could just-

Dick laughed, again.

"Shit. Nope."

Time to find an exit.

XXXX0000XXXX

 **Author's Notes:** So, like I said. Not so quick. Finally other people show up so Jason can have people to talk to! Hey, look, it's the reason Dick was invented in the first place! Granted, convos with Dicks don't happen until chapter VI, which I'm still working on, but hey. They happen! Yaaaay!

Some progress made, not much. A lot of Jason pulling on life experience to try and get information. Jason as a bleached blonde would be weird, I think. I can't really imagine it. Anytime he goes back red, that's weird (though I guess Lobdell completely erased that, so whatever). Only the tiniest bit of info about our girl, Nine, and our killer (so little in the bit that I would describe it as 'nothing').

Anyhow anyhow. Hope at least some of this was enjoyable. Thanks for reading! Please review!


	4. Necessary Masks

Chapter IV

"Necessary Masks"

He was almost out the door when he felt a hand touch the back of his neck and a low voice with far too much humor in it carry to him despite the volume of the music.

"Hey, Jay. Fancy meeting you here."

He stopped his feet. There was no point now. There was no pressure in the hand pressed against his spine, but as if there were, his head dropped. Not with shame, _never_ with shame, but with exhaustion. Already. He went ahead and prepared for it because it would come. It always did.

"Well, golly, Dick. What a coincidence. You and me. In Gotham. Amazing. Now that it's been noted, and spoken of. By us. How about…" he lifted a shoulder, not quite begging, but like he might be willing to beg. But Dick didn't seem interested.

"Don't even think about it, Jay. You're going to sit," he gestured to a cluster of empty high tables near them. "You're going to talk."

"Or what," he snapped, because he always did. Dick would take note if he were too measured, and Jason didn't need a suspicious Dick Grayson. "You'll tell Daddy?"

"Yes. Yes, Jason. I will. That's what happens. You're not really supposed to be here."

"Well, pot meet kettle, neither are you."

Dick smirked, "I'm not often here, but I'm also not banned from the city limits, Jaybird. Try again. You here to cause trouble?" He looked around at all the very, very vulnerable kids. No way Dick suspected he'd do something here of all places. Jason would never. "Or…"

"Fuck no. Following a lead. Lead came into town. Any luck, lead will walk right back out. Sooner the better."

"You didn't call."

Jason rolled his eyes, "Oh golly gee, Boy Wonder, I can't imagine why that is."

"He has rules, you broke th-"

"I'm hardly the only one," Jason snapped before Dick could even finish the admonishment.

"No. No you're not. But Jason, you know full well you're the one who does it the most. And with the least regret. And you know it hurts him more when you do it than when someone like…" a quick smile, "…someone not his does it."

" _His._ Bull _shit_. Sounds like something he should work through on his own time. I don't have it in me to manage his expectations of me and my own, Dick. I am who I am. Of all of us, you should get that. I can be as good as I can be, and I _am;_ I have my line and my values. But the fact that they don't match up with his is just the way it is. He isn't god, and his rules, like it or not, aren't my law."

Dick almost laughed, and Jason knew enough of the older man's relationship with Batman to recognize the touch of bitterness in it. "Here? They kind of are."

"Well. That's an interesting delusion he's convinced himself of over the last couple of years of crouching at the top of buildings looking down at the rest of us, isn't it? That he's the one who makes the rules. That it's his city, to do with as he wishes. Might be so now, sure. But it might not always be that way. He outlived me the first time, Dickie, but he might not do it again."

Jason wanted to cackle as Dick Grayson's spine stiffened and a touch of horror darkened his strikingly blue eyes. He could see shadows there that were memories of threats and violence that Jason hadn't visited upon the family in years. Good to know how thin a barrier there was between their hesitant care for him, which he did know was there, and their fear of him, which was equally never questioned.

It hurt a little. But it was also fair. His actions were his own. He couldn't deny them.

"I'm not here to hurt him, Dick. Not here to hurt you, either. Or the brats." He paused, but added, "Or the girls, if you need that promise. Though, I feel that's unnecessary. I think it's obvious I like them all better than the rest of you. I wasn't lying. I had a job. For some cursed reason, my job walked its way into Gotham. With any luck, I'll have him out of here this week, and turned into the suit who hired me to pick him up."

Dick blinked, "Suit?"

"Yeah. Roy and I made friends with a government busybody a while ago. Sometimes finds freelancers useful. Pays well, and is always on the up and up with me, so I generally say yes when a job comes my way from that direction. We didn't know the perp would go to ground in Gotham. He wasn't anywhere near Gotham last we had him. He was in South America. If he'd been a Gotham native or known Gotham operative, my employer would have sent the job elsewhere."

"Maybe he still should," Dick muttered; though, all of the tension had slipped from him. The man was relaxed, and curiosity had bled back into his piercing gaze.

Jason snorted. "The suit doesn't like me enough to keep me on the job unless there is no one else on the roster capable. I'm on base for a reason. Being in Gotham… not pleasant. I'll admit that. But it's where the job is, so I'm keeping my head down and getting my shit done."

Dick looked him over, assessing, and if Jason read him right – and Dick wasn't always easy to read, he just pretended to be – he was going to back off. "You still have my number?"

"….Yeah."

"Same thing applies, then. Always has, Jay. Lots of things have changed, but not the most important ones. B's still terrible at talking, and I'm still here. Use the number if you need help. Or just use the number, period. Let me know how you are. Someone needs to be able to keep up with you."

Not reacting to that wasn't the easiest bit of acting he'd ever done in his life, but Jason thought he managed to at least fake nonchalance. But he'd never been as good an actor as Dick, and never been as good at reading people, either. Dick would know.

The older man smiled and lifted a hand to press to his cheek. "He's …displeased, Jay. But he won't be unhappy forever. He never is. He's too … lost for that. So are you. Try to be not upset at the same time for a little longer when you finally both get there again, yeah?"

"No promises," he grumbled.

Dick let out another one of those glorious laughs, again, and was about to turn and leave, when Jason stopped him. "Hey! Wait. Um… Ivy…"

"What?" The non sequitur brought a confusion to Dick's face that was almost comical.

"Don't make a big deal about it, don't read into it, this is my shit, leave it alone," Jason glared at the man like it would do any good. "But… Ivy. If she were in New York, could she … _feel_ the desecration of plants in Gotham?"

"Could she…" Dick bit his lip. He was thinking about it. Jason groaned; there was no way to keep him from thinking about it. "I think, honestly, if she wanted she could feel the desecration of plants anywhere in the world. I think, for her sanity—"

"Sanity?" he snorted.

"Pot, kettle," Dick sing-songed. Jason bristled. "For her sanity, she keeps to a more localized region. But she always seems to know what's happening in Gotham. She came and beat the ever-loving crap out of Killer Moth a few years ago when he used some of Firefly's weaponry to burn down a section of forest. Thing is, I'm pretty sure she was taking part in a rather violent anti-logging protest in the northwest at the time and wasn't near enough to know he was doing anything of the sort through any of the usual means."

The northwest and Gotham was significantly farther than New York and Gotham. And a random stretch of forest wasn't a park Poison Ivy had specifically declared as her territory.

"Thanks, Dick. That helps."

"Jason, if you go to Ivy for help on this when I-"

"No, no, it's just a hunch. Leave off. You can go now. You've been very helpful! You can go home and bask in the feeling of helpfulness!" He flashed a rare shit-eating grin because, seriously, Dick probably _would_ go home and be genuinely happy he'd been able to help him, and finally made for the exit.

Fleeing from Dick was easier said than done. Jason couldn't trust him not to follow where he wasn't wanted. Not to lead Tim to his pleasant middle-class vacation rental apartment. So Jason didn't return to Terrance's vacation. Instead, he went for one of his less-liked Gotham aliases.

Gram Greene. Ex-con. Two short stays in Blackgate for possession. Early release for _good behavior_ , aka rolling on a higher up. In his case, the – at the time – mysterious drug lord, Red Hood. Which was why Gram did time for simple possession and not possession with intent to sell. It was also why he revolved in and out of the jail with barely a taste of the shitty Blackgate air on his tongue when Jason set the cover up years ago, with Talia's help.

Gram and Gram's shitty dive apartment were once very useful. It was obviously less so now that he couldn't claim Gotham as home, and it was more important to keep a buffer between him and the Bats.

Besides, this wasn't one of the places he had taken Arty and Biz. If they came to Gotham looking for him, they wouldn't look for him at the apartment of Gram Greene. And they wouldn't try to use it as a hideout of their own, either. It was safe to torch. Literally or metaphorically.

He was deep in the slums before he dragged himself into a warehouse basement. He hadn't caught sight of a tail, but that didn't mean Dick wasn't there. He could be a silly bastard, but there was a reason Nightwing could stand next to Superman and be taken seriously.

Jason tried not to be so bitter about Bruce's treatment of him over the last few years that he made the mistake of underestimating how truly gifted his peers were. Tried not to be an actual idiot. Not all the time, at least.

Too many people –villains and heroes both – looked at the bunch of kids Batman gathered, saw sidekicks, and assumed _lesser-than_. Jason _knew_ better. He sat in the basement apartment in the dark for an hour and waited for Dick, or anyone, to trip the alarms he had around the place. But there was nothing.

For now, Dick was letting him do his job. Trusting him.

Which wasn't nothing.

X0000X

Getting in contact with Dr. Pamela Isley was not easy.

Jason was uncomfortable with the idea of leaving Gotham while the killer was within the city limits, but he had no direct contact information for the woman. And there was something … inherently demeaning about setting up a sockpuppet fan MomoGraph account to try and get her attention that way.

But the only other form of contact he could establish would be Battleworth to Waller to Harley to Ivy, and that would assume any of those women giving enough of a shit to pass along a message. And Waller couldn't fucking stand him. And would expect something in return. Which, since Jason wasn't particularly fond of her either, wasn't a favor he was eager to give out.

But if social media contact didn't work, he wouldn't have much of a choice.

He weighed the pros and cons of making the account alias female, knowing Ivy's prejudices, and instead went for gender-neutral. All animals and scenery and food and books, many of the images were unused discards from Terrance's blog. He backdated the account a year, spacing out the images like he was not particularly interested in keeping up with the site, but wanted to keep a hand in.

And then he sent a message to both Harley and Ivy. Because there was a possibility that even if Ivy didn't pay attention, Harley would. It was clear she was significantly more invested in the chaos of social media fame.

 _If a man chose to slaughter a child in Gotham Central Park, would you know? Would you act?_

 _Would Dr. Isley step in to avenge the murder of a child, killed on the soil of Gotham Central Park?_

Jason considered vague, cryptic, and nonsensical. He considered mundane. But then he decided there was no point. He needed her attention. And if there was one thing Jason had learned in his life, the best way to get someone's attention was to be direct, loud, and completely, unignorably harsh.

He didn't attach any pictures he had, though. And he had considered that. So he wasn't entirely given over to vulgarity.

He closed the app, leaned back against the couch and covered his eyes with his arm. Now he had to wait. For Pam or Harley or the bartender. Or the motion detectors in the park. For someone or something to give him the information he needed to take the next step.

Jason hated waiting. But he also couldn't go _outside_ and do any recon or canvas locals since bloody _Nightwing_ would probably be _everywhere_. With his near-metahuman ability to be a giant pain in his neck. It made him want to scream. It made him want to shoot something.

Instead he stretched and gathered what he could from his dry goods to make a fairly credible vegetarian curry. He turned on an audio copy of Wuthering Heights to play as he cooked, to fill the empty place with the sound of something other than the rats in roof and to try and distract him from his nerves.

He hated having nothing to do. But he was at a ... not a dead end, but he had a lot of information with not enough focus. Walking around the city because he was twitchy wouldn't do him any good.

Tonight he would rest. He would wait for Poison Ivy to get back with him. And when the sun was high enough for all Bats and Birds to be in bed, he'd check the park, again.

It was a good plan. A solid plan.

He still very much wanted to shoot something.

But he didn't. And Jason counted that as a win.

XXXX0000XXXX

 **Author's Note:** So I'm obviously ignoring Ric. I try to keep up on rumors and solicits, so I knew Ric was coming not long after I started, suspected Roy was going to get hit with HiC, etc etc. Lobdell taking over Percy's book was a shock, but not one that changes the fact that I'm ignoring that bit of it at the moment. Always a possibility that storyline will work out to something amazing, but I'm not holding my breath. With Roy and Bruce, just assume pre last issue. I just can't even deal with it I'm so over the way Lobdell treats Bruce and Jason's relationship.

Sorry this took so long. Between breaking my ankle and issues with government paperwork that have had me stressed AF... let's just say it has been a HARD month. Now we move into almost-November and actual-November, the hardest month of my working year... so this isn't going to get any faster, but I'll do my best, I promise. Thanks so much for reading and reviewing!


	5. Homeless Home

Chapter V

"Homeless Home"

He was flat out on the floor when his phone chimed with a notification of a private message from one of the very few apps he had installed on it. He had a brief flare of hope that it was the burner phone he'd given the Bartender and that was connected to Ivy's MomoGraph account, only to realize he was wrong.

It was his personal phone.

And the alert was a message from, of all people, Tim.

 _T: You shouldn't be here._

Jason considered letting it go, but that was ominous as fuck, and he wasn't letting the little shit get away with that. Kid barely came up to his collar bone and couldn't legally drink. He didn't take shit from pipsqueak replacements.

 _J: So come make me leave. Or you going to send the big bad Bat to do your dirty work?_

 _T: Like I need Bruce's help to take out the trash._

Jason snorted.

 _J: Like you've ever taken out trash a day in your life, rich kid. Find a new metaphor. Unclench your ass, you anal retentive punk. I'm here for a few more days, tops. I'm not going to cause trouble._

 _T: Don't be gross. Also, I live alone. Obviously, I have taken out my own trash. (You always cause trouble.)_

 _J: I'll be as gross as I damn well please. And I call bullshit. Alfred still does your laundry, Mr. Independent. I'd be willing to bet my own, hard earned cash that either Alfie or your studly Kryptonian is doing most of your chores, manipulative monster that you are._

 _T: Absolute slander. I'm not manipulative; I merely exercise good leadership skills. (And stolen drug money isn't hard earned by any metric.)_

 _J:One:_ Libel _. Messenger apps, though conversational, are still written and so not slander. I'm embarrassed for you. Two: Timbers, you can pretty-up manipulative all you like, but sly is sly, you little shit. Three: Tell that to the bullet hole in my ass._

 _T: Screw off. Also: GROSS_.

Jason laughed so hard he almost dropped his phone.

 _J: What? Did I hit a sore spot? Anyway. Speaking of sore spots. The ass wound healed pretty damn well, actually. Thanks for asking._

 _T: Changing the subject now. Do you need help with whatever you're here and sneaking around the Gotham slums for?_

Goddamn Dick Grayson. Jason must have missed a camera when running from Nightwing, and gotten caught by Red Robin's fucking Big Brother tech.

Eh. Better Tim than Bruce, honestly. He and Tim were getting along, at the moment. Though, that could change. Any of it could change. Barbara would have probably been best, but at least it wasn't Bruce. Or Kate. God he hated getting caught by Kate. Not having any baggage with her also meant he didn't have anything to kick her in the balls with, emotionally.

Also, he couldn't kick her in the balls. Which was tragic. He rather liked kicking people in the balls.

Not the point. Point was Tim had a line on his location. Maybe not his exact safe house, but he could put him in a general area, and that was very not good. And Dick had Jason's current look, so the face prosthetic and hair dye was going to have to be changed. Not that either was seemingly any use against Tim's tech or Dick's… dickishness.

Jason scowled at his phone.

 _J: "You're not supposed to be here, Jason." "Let me help you, Jason." Gee, Timmy. How ya doin' on that fence?_

 _T: I thrive on this fence, thank you very much. Sooner you finish your job, the sooner you leave, the less time I spend lying-by-omission to Bruce. Not that I'm not a pro at that, but it still sucks._

He gave that some thought. Tim was closer to Ivy than even Dick. And was the best detective out of the lot of them. Getting his help would be the smartest thing to do. But it wasn't Tim's job. And he didn't necessarily want Tim on the government radar (any more than he likely already was), which connection to him on this job might do. Jason knew Battleworth wasn't good enough to bug or track him in a way that he couldn't detect, but he suspected she would be able to work her way backwards through his process once the job was completed. If he let another person in on the job, she would know, and might be able to backtrack that to Red Robin. And what halfway intelligent intelligence agency wouldn't want to recruit that kid?

It was an annoyance he didn't need. Especially when Jason heard Tim was considering getting out of the life completely.

But, the Ivy thing was too important to just leave be.

 _J: I've got the job as a whole. But I wouldn't turn down info. Has there been any Poison Ivy activity in the city in the last few days? I know she's currently in New York, but that doesn't mean she can't act in Gotham._

It was several long minutes before Jason received a reply. During which time, Jason assumed Tim thought through every possible scenario where Jason was chasing down or looking to kill the red-headed ecoterrorist. And discarding all of them.

 _T: Are you looking for a hideout? A power reserve? Some remnant or object she left behind or is hiding here that would leave a signature?_

 _J: Not exactly, no. I'm not entirely sure what I'm looking for, but what I think is that she uses her power so extensively here, that some of it lingers in places. Or that there are areas in the city she can easily access even from far away. Access, and control. Where are those areas? Are any of them active? I know she's in NYC. Has anyone reported seeing Ivy or Ivy-related activity recently while she is away?_

The latter he had checked out himself through the usual routes of social media gossip and some super/meta news forums, but had ultimately found nothing about Ivy other than links to the MomoGraph images of her and Harley hanging out. Information he already had. Jason had basic information from the GCPD cribbed from their reports and passed on by some of Battleworth's people, but it was all very rudimentary. Not even close to the good information that Babs or Tim or Bruce would have. And nothing like Dick could get.

Jason could have cracked in himself, but not without leaving a signature anyone in his family would have recognized. So he was left with third and fourth (and fifth and sixth…) hand information, which was basically crap.

His phone chirped.

 _T: Four places of note. A florist on fourth, which I've never seen before. Must be new. I'll check it out on patrol. Central Park, specifically the less groomed regions in the north and northeastern sections. The botanical gardens, of course. And Gotham Academy's back garden, which I'm slightly torn up about. Technically, her parole is supposed to keep her away from educational institutions. The university still has a restraining order against her. But at the same time, she's never been one to harm children. I don't think it's any more of a risk than the park. Maybe less so, even._

The park. That was it.

He had to agree about the school, though. Still, there were adults at the Academy. And Ivy wasn't always mentally stable. Something Jason could wholly understand. He wouldn't shove her back in Arkham for going to look at the school gardens, but he'd try and make sure she didn't go back, again.

 _J: Don't tell the Bat. She didn't hurt anyone, and shoving her back in that hell hole over it isn't going to fix shit. But keep an eye out. If she goes back, maybe explain why it's not the best idea._

 _T: Is that why you're here? To … rehabilitate Poison Ivy?_

Jason let out a sharp, deeply unhappy laugh. Glad no one was around to hear him. Glad Roy wasn't around to hear him.

 _J: No. I'm here to find a killer._

He added his favorite gif of Nightwing blowing a kiss to a security camera and diving off the side of some random skyscraper, and turned off the phone.

Time for a new cover.

Fucking Dick Grayson. Fucking Tim Drake. Fucking Big Brother Bat paranoia.

X0000X

Burning Gram Greene had hurt. He liked being that dumb snitch from time-to-time. Was useful. The cover was a great way to go out and pass information when needed, and it had been one of his oldest and most comfortable not-homes.

This place was the shit. A high-rise condo, secured through very semi-legal means when he took over the Black Mask's operations a few months earlier. It was fancy as all hell, absolutely state-of-the-art, set up for one of Black Mask's deputies, a dude with no name Jason could remember. Dead, though Jason hadn't been the one to kill him. Roman was happy enough to kill his own guys on a whim.

Jason hated the place. But it was the last area Dick or Tim would look for him for that very reason.

"Hello, unnecessarily fancy apartment. How's it going, pretentious rug made of some rare animal I don't even want to even think about? Hey, kitchen. Lookin' beautiful. How about we make dinner together and forget that rug even exists, eh?"

Was edging up on 3 A.M., but Jason wasn't tired. Jason was edgy. And when edgy, Jason could either shoot things, exercise, read, or cook. Eating seemed like the best plan. He had been forced to abandon most of his curry in Gram's apartment. Another tragedy. He'd make Tim pay for it someday. He was alarmingly talented when it came to holding grudges.

Jason tossed his jacket over a stool and put his wallet and phones and the bag holding his computer equipment on the bar. He knew the fridge was empty – he hadn't done anything more than clean the place out and make sure the bills were paid up on the place after he took it over – but he was pretty sure it was stocked up on non-perishables. He should be able to get good tomato sauce and pasta out of that, even with dried herbs and canned tomatoes. Though Alfie would be scandalized, and Jason had become a bit more discerning between Alfred's cooking and Talia's various captured chefs. It would still be better than anything he'd put together as a street brat.

Better than most of what Mom had made. Much as he hated to think anything negative about his mom, she was hardly the best cook in the world. Willis resented that about her, but how the hell was she supposed to have done better? When was she supposed to have learned how? And with what money could she have bought good food? What with Willis not bringing in shit and him spending anything they got as fast as they got it.

Jason clinched his fists. He wasn't sure why he was thinking about his parents. He felt cornered, which always reminded him of living on the streets. Feeling trapped made him feel small. And feeling small reminded him of Willis shouting and Mom on the floor.

God, some days he missed his mom so much. This life… he couldn't even imagine something different. He thought of those girls, all those little girls dead in all those little rooms (and some of them dead in big rooms), and remembered being dead and trapped… Trapped and dead, dead and trapped. First one, then the other.

He couldn't imagine a life where he didn't wear a mask. Where he didn't fight. Didn't seethe. But sometimes, when he was cornered, he'd think of Willis and Mom, mostly of his mom, and wonder what he would do if he could go back there. Back to sitting on the floor with her. Curled around her as she cried, as she shook, as she vomited. Those rare cases, those last months and weeks when she was able to smile and tell him she loved him.

He missed his mom so much when he was trapped, and Tim and Dick and fucking Bruce fucking Wayne had him trapped. Trapped and alone, missing his mom.

But, just like when he was a kid, there was a way out. As a kid, the way out was Batman… Jason took it. As an adult, that way out was _away_ from Batman.

But Jason wasn't going to take it. Was staying in Gotham safe for him? Maybe not. But staying in Gotham was the only way to get justice (get vengeance) for a little girl whose parents may or may not give a shit. But surely someone, somewhere did. And if not? _Jason_ sure as shit did.

If no one else cared, Jason would care. And he would care _hard._

Plus, staying in Gotham was the only way to stop the next death. Otherwise, it would be another body in another city, and Jason didn't have the contacts he needed in those other cities to get to the crime scenes before police did.

So, did Tim and Dick have him cornered? Yes.

Yes.

But just because he felt trapped, didn't mean he was. Dick could be a goddamn snitch, but he could also hold his tongue when he knew he needed to, and he understood how important it was to keep emotional distance from Bruce, for the pure and simple reason of the preservation of one's own sanity. He'd been there, he'd done that. More than once. Jason wouldn't want to rely on it, but if necessary, he could trust Dick.

And Tim, annoying prat that he was, was a sneaky fucker. Word it right, and explain it properly, and not only would he have Tim on board, but he'd have Tim on board _and_ willing to go behind the Bat's back. He'd heard stories about all the shit Tim and Stephanie, and Tim and Kon and Bart pulled when left to their own devices. Tim was as flexible as Dick was, in his own way.

With those two at hand (at need), Jason could survive Gotham.

His phone chimed.

His burner phone chimed.

After first wiping his hands on a towel he pulled from the pantry and hoped was clean enough, he picked it up. MomoGraph DM.

Ivy.

 _So, yet another young man courting suicide through social media harassment. Both very unwise and entirely unoriginal._

Jason grinned.

"And here we go."

XXXX0000XXXX

 **Author's Note:** And, uh, here we go? I guess? Obviously I still hate Heroes in Crisis and don't really care about what it does. Except for it presenting an awful view of mental health and mental health care, which obviously I care enough about to be angry about. I have OPINIONS. But I don't think it alters the overall status quo in a way that makes me want to change what I'm writing at all.

(And yeah, I don't care about this Ric no k nonsense. Dick is Dick. Christ on a cracker.)


	6. Unclean Hands

Chapter VI

"Unclean Hands"

 _So, yet another young man courting suicide through social media harassment. Both very unwise and entirely unoriginal._

Jason loved everything about it. He pulled up a picture of the park in question – though, not the Running Falls, not yet. Not until he understood what she could do – and attached it to the message.

 _Assisted suicide, maybe. And that's assuming I let you pull the trigger. Not the point... I have a dead body, not one_ I _killed. I have a dead body_ , _but no killer. I believe the killer might try and get_ your _attention. Would putting a trophy from her in the park be enough to do that? Yes, obviously his belief is more important than the factual nature of your power, but is there anything that's been promoted about you recently that would make him believe that it would?_

He tossed the phone back on the counter and returned to his cooking with a lighter spirit. If he could get Ivy on board, Ivy could watch the park. That would be better than the motion detection cameras because _he_ couldn't be there in an instant. _She_ could tag and track his ass fast. And likely would with or without him.

Which put him back on finding out who the girl was.

While the sauce simmered, he pulled out his computer equipment and hooked himself up to the building's WiFi. He knew she wasn't going to any of Gotham's numerous public schools, and absolutely hadn't been at Gotham Academy. She wasn't in the system for juvie. So, that pretty much left completely uneducated and some version of neglected-to-perfectly acceptable home school.

He checked the latest update from Battleworth. Girl had a reasonably clean bill of health, considering the whole "dead" thing, had a recent flu vaccination, and was on hormonal birth control. Interesting since they found no note about her being in the system, meaning she wasn't getting these meds through traditional hospitals.

Despite the birth control, she did not appear to be regularly sexually active. Of course, there was a note that the medication she was on did serve other purposes. Lacking the girl's uterus, it was impossible to say which was true. She had no dental work, but her teeth were in reasonable shape; though, they also did not lead to an ID. No tattoos. Single ear piercing on each ear.

Was an interesting list. The vaccination and birth control would probably put her out of the religious home schooling group and likely out of true poverty, street kid… unless she was one of Leslie's kids. The Free Clinics would do vaccines. And Leslie was willing to overlook paperwork if a kid was twitchy. She didn't like it, but she would if it meant getting the kid help. And if the girl was sneaking out to clean pop up parties, surely she was mentally independent enough to sneak out to a women's clinic and get birth control for herself. Perhaps under an alias, even.

So, she could be defying her parents in her own health care education.

And if that were true … Good, googly, modern Gotham youth, Ladies and Gentlemen.

Jason backdoored his way into a few Gotham home school groups on several social media sites and pulled out lists of common get-together locations. And then he had to consider his options, because security camera feed in the Royal Roast, one of the most common meetups, for example, was private. He could break that, no problem. But the park at 12th and Hart would require getting the feed from traffic cameras, and those… those were absolutely public.

"Fucking hell…"

So. The superhacker or the cop? Or the superhacker daughter of a cop?

Well, Babs didn't know he was in town, so better to keep it that way.

Tim or Dick?

Ugh.

Tim. He could do all of it at once, and he could do it faster. It put the investigation at risk of BatTakeover, but not knowing her name set him back. Jason would prefer to do it himself, but doing it himself would take an hour, maybe even two hours more….

And… no. He would have to eat those extra hours.

He couldn't give Tim that girl's face. If he did that, then Tim would _have_ to take over. Jason knew Tim. He wouldn't stay out of it. Wouldn't be able to. And Jason couldn't fault Red Robin for that. He was a hero. An obsessive, type-A hero, which was even worse.

Dick… was too much trouble.

So Jason would do this himself. As originally planned. Tim was a crutch he didn't need to use. And Tim was a vulnerability he didn't want exposed.

Jason snorted. Little shit would hate to hear that. And Jason was almost 95% certain Timmy could handle himself with Battleworth. But he shouldn't have to if Jason could help it, and he could. Tara wanted a harder hitter, and Jason suspected Tim could be that, if pressed. It was better not to press him.

So Jason would do it.

And Jason did it.

What would have taken Tim or Babs maybe 30 minutes, tops, took him almost 3 hours during which time he managed to tear himself away long enough to finish cooking at eat. Might have taken him 20 minutes less without the food, but food was necessary. Still, always would have taken him longer. But he had to be doubly, _triply_ careful. He wasn't just avoiding detection by the GCPD, he was sneaking by Red Robin's watchers, the checks Batman had set up, and Batgirl's guard programs. Honestly, any criminal who got into Gotham City's tech had to either knew how those three minds worked, or was a next-level genius.

Jason was lucky that he knew the Bats as well as he did, because he wasn't genius enough to get past them without insider knowledge.

He suspected Tim would be looking for him to meddle, and would catch him quickest. But at least he wouldn't know what he was looking for. _Who_ he was looking for.

He set his computer to watch old footage from the last meetups scheduled for the coffee shop and park, and moved on to looking at the lists of people on social media signed up to the groups. Focusing on the pictures of mothers. Looking for one that somewhat resembled the girl he'd examined.

He scrolled through member lists and looked at noses and jaws and brow lines and the tilt of eyes. He went from groups focused on religious exemption homeschooling to those more interested on homeschooling for political reasons. He almost passed by a group of medical homeschoolers, because she wasn't on medications that one would expect of a kid too sick to attend public school, but that would be foolish. So he hit there, too.

And he found her, finally.

Or, rather, he found a family member. A mother, most likely.

Candice Harker. She had a blog on raising a child with absence seizures.

Her child had seizures. Frequently. She got lost. Frequently. Her name was Hanna. Hanna Harker. She'd been missing now for well over 3 days, at least. Possibly longer. _Probably_ longer.

Jason's break into the GCPD records files was sloppier than it should have been. He didn't hide his tracks as well as he should have, but he was angry. There was no missing person report for a Hanna Harker. No report of a Candice Harker speaking to an officer about her daughter.

He hacked into county records. Candice had been married to a man named Daniel. Daniel had filed for divorce two years earlier, and had left for the west coast after remarrying. The new wife's name was named Len. Their marriage certificate was filed three months after the divorce was finalized, and as far as Jason could tell, Daniel had made no effort to see his daughter Hanna in the two years since moving to Oregon.

It seemed Candice had fallen apart, since.

Jason went back to the blog. Around the time of the divorce, it was obvious she was struggling, but by the time her ex-husband remarried, things were cleaned up, and it was like Daniel Harker never existed. And, interestingly, though Candice still spoke of the struggles of parenting and teaching a child with a chronic medical issue, Hanna's name was not mentioned once in the last two years.

He finally found medical records for her. In a small clinic, cheap, though not a free clinic. Notation of her name, frequent periods of 'daydreaming' and occasional fainting spells, preliminary diagnosis of epilepsy, and a prescription. No blood test was done. No renewal of the prescription was made. She was nine years old at the time. She was fourteen, now.

(She was fourteen last week. She was dead, now.)

It was possible that was the _only_ doctor Hanna had seen for her condition.

The photo recognition software lit up in alert. Jason turned to the screen and saw her.

Hanna Harker, alive. Standing at the 12th and Hart park entrance, one week ago. She was so small, and alone.

Then she was not alone. She walked up to a man, at least 6 foot tall, maybe more. He towered over her. There were muscles clearly defined in his arms, but his midsection was too thick to be that of a man who regularly visited the gym. His hair was dark, mid-length. It was lightly tousled so that it fell over his eyes, just slightly. His skin seemed a bit pale, but not too pale. Not for Gotham.

He reached out to her, and she took his hand.

They left the park together.

Jason pressed pause on the feed, and tracked back.

Daniel Harker was a short man. Daniel Harker was in Oregon. Daniel Harker had no siblings. Candice Harker had a sister, unmarried. Hanna Harker had no uncles.

Jason stared at the grayscale image of the big man reaching out a hand to the small girl, and resisted the urge to break the screen.

"Found you."

XXXXX0000XXXXX

 **Author's Note:** Okay, this is hella short, but I feel I've left it too long since the last one, and I feel this is also a solid end point for the chapter, so... yeah. It's hella short, but it's going to stay hella short. Work is MADHOUSE. But should get less so in about two weeks, so I can start writing for reals again. But I didn't want to wait another two weeks to just GET STARTED. So I'm doing this. Short chapter and then a bigger chapter 7.

So we have PROGRESS in 5. Contact with Ivy, and we now know who our victim is. Epilepsy is a bit of a personal touch. I've got it, and it is something I've always found rather interesting as far as how easy it would be to take advantage of. I've had a few seizures in public with strangers (I have grand mals, full body seizures, not absence) but have lucked out. No one has stolen money or hurt me or done anything weird. Everyone's been great. But it is a risk I've always been rather concerned about, so I'm going to use it, here.

Again, sorry it's short (sorry, not sorry? I mean, I wish it were longer, but I know it is short and I'm putting it out anyhow!), but I hope you enjoy! Please review!


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